Conjuring the Tokoshe - Alan Brough

CONJURING THE TOKOLOSHE

The war between good and evil, the African spiritual portal and how belief fuels the supernatural, bringing this beast out of our nightmares and into our reality.

The power of the Tokoloshe (which, for those that don’t know, is a nasty little goblin found in southern and central Africa), like all things supernatural, is dependent on the power of belief. It literally lives or dies, to the point of manifestation, depending on just how much people believe in it.

Where people still believe in the Tokoloshe it has remarkable power, holding sway over those fearful communities. But as belief wanes with things like Western influence, urban drift and in-

© Alan Brough Page �1

ternational migration so too does the power, influence and actual manifestation of the unpleas-ant little beast.

Not just in Africa, but across the world the intensity of belief in the supernatural varies from place to place, and community to community. This in turn causes weaknesses which run like fault lines across the very fabric of the spirit-world.

As noted in the book Imajica, “Magic is the first and last religion of the world” and like all reli-gions it is fuelled, nurtured and developed through the power of belief. Belief which varies ac-cording to the geography, history and circumstance of the particular congregation.

Many factors contribute to this variation and some places are certainly more prone to the super-natural than others. For example most people would agree that the Nganga Market in Mbari, or the island of Haiti, with its pronounced Voodoo culture are both far more supernatural than, say, Sandton Square in Joburg or Bay Street in downtown Toronto.

But what has caused this variation in belief and power, and in which direction are we currently evolving? Is mankind moving towards a future of sterile atheism where the Technocrats with all their money and AI become our gods? Will we be ruled once again by the demons and demigods of old? Or will we be able to cling onto that fleeting sliver of Christianity and the God of forgiveness who is trying to hold onto the shifting middle ground?

We might be able to predict where we end up in the future by considering how non-belief and the encroachment of foreigners has eroded the power of Africa’s old gods.

In the mid-1950’s Laurens van der Post traveled through Bechuanaland ‘searching for some pure remnant of the unique and almost vanished first people.’ Part of this journey took him to the mystical Tsodilo Hills where his party inadvertently offended the gods by spilling blood in a thoughtless hunt.

Their guide was an elder by the name of Samutchoso who lamented the dying of his gods to van der Post. After the incident and the atoning that was required, ‘Samutchoso remarked: “The spirits of the hills are not what they were, Master. They are losing their power. Ten years ago they would have killed you all for coming to them in that manner.” It was a cry straight from the heart and the final utterance of an experience which seemed to me to be an example of the in-jury the coming of the Europeans had done to the being and spirit of Africa. Samutchoso’s gods


were dying from a contagion brought by us, and against which he and his kind had not our inborn immunities. Now to whom and what could he turn? For even he, illiterate and unimpressive in the rags and tatters of our civilisation, knew that without his gods life would lose its meaning and inevitably lead to-wards disaster.’1

When considering things like ghosts, forest fairies, Samutchoso’s gods of Tsodilo, or indeed the Tokoloshe itself, we need to first agree on whether there is any basis of reality in the supernatural.

As it is hard to scientifically prove the supernatural, I believe a logical place to build a convincing argument is in the bible. My reasoning for this approach is that Western civilisation is founded on Christianity hence there is a broad acceptance of the view that the Bible is credible, even though it is often shrouded in symbolism. The passages of note that seem to support the physi-cal existence of the supernatural include:

1) Genesis Chapter 6, verses 2 to 6: This references ‘gods’ interbreeding with human women and producing hybrid off-spring called Nephilim. Various ancient Hebrew records de-scribe the Nephilim as huge giants or ‘Titans’ (which we also see, named as such, in ancient Greek mythology).

2) Numbers Chapter 13, verse 13: These Naphilim appear to have survived the Great Flood (or did the gods just continue dabbling with human women?) as in this passage the Israeli spies who are scoping the land ahead of them report, “And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak, which come of the giants: and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so we were in their sight.”

‘The Lost World of the Kalahari’ by Laurens van der Post. Published in 1958 by Hogarth Press Limited. 1


3) Enoch Chapter 19, versus 1 and 2 (it should be noted that although the Book of Enoch is an ancient Hebrew apocalyptic text it was not selected to be included in the Bible) : This pas-sage talks of the ongoing interbreeding between demigods (or ‘angels’ as they are referred to throughout the bible) which is alluded to in the above Book of Numbers.

These angels are clearly supernatural beings that live with and surround our Christian ‘God’. A good way of viewing this collective is that they are a superior / supernatural civilisation of highly advanced spiritual beings that monitor and guide our human development and evolution. Their supreme leader is ‘God’ or ‘Yahweh’ as he is called in the ancient texts.

As in all civilisations there is division, and there are ranks of good and evil in this supernatural community. According to the Bible the division came about soon after God created mankind. Lu-cifer and his followers were jealous of these humans and felt they were being marginalised by God who was distracted by his new creation. Unappeased, they broke away and declared war on God, vowing to corrupt, hurt and ultimately destroy his precious little humans in the process.


A painting by the renown Tanzanian artist George Lilanga who dedicated his entire career to portraying the Tokoloshe (or ‘Setani’ as they are locally known in Tanzania). Done in his distinctive bright, graphic style, this particular artwork shows a Tokoloshe receiving homages of milk (which they love) from his

fearful subjects. © Alan Brough.

Ever since, these Fallen Angels have been conspiring to harm and inflict pain and suffering on mankind in any devious way they can as a means of ‘getting back’ at God.

We are literally the innocents caught in the cross-fire of a massive, galactic spiritual war. A war which we can gain tiny peeks of by carefully looking behind the supernatural veil of both Chris-tianity and Satanism. These peeks must be done extremely carefully though as you don’t want anything to stick and come over from the other side. In spiritualism this is called ‘attachment’ and is often a feature of hauntings, demonic possession and exorcism, so again, seems to be very much grounded in the reality of our own world. The following passage from the Book of Enoch which was written two and a half thousand years ago (apparently by Noah’s great-grandfather) refers to these ‘Fallen Angels’ and how they have, from the very beginning, corrupted humanity:

“And Uriel said to me: ‘Here shall stand the angels who have connected themselves with women, and their spirits assuming many different forms are defiling mankind and shall lead them astray into sacrificing to demons and gods. Here shall they stand, till the day of the Great Judgement in which they shall be judged till they are made an end of. And the women who bound themselves with the Fallen Angels shall become Sirens over the ages of earth’…”

And such passages are not just limited to the Book of Enoch. There are many references in the Bible and its ancient associated texts that point to the reality of the supernatural world and the beings that inhabit it. Ranging from giants and centaurs, to poltergeist and demons, they are all ready and able to use their power and magic to trick, mislead, harm and enslave mankind. These texts pre-date the associated mythology that grew up around the likes of Sirens, Mino-taurs and shape-shifters during the Egyptian, Greek and Roman civilisations that followed, dur-ing which the physical existence of these supernatural beings was beyond question.

Towards the end of the Roman civilisation a new monotheistic religion established itself in one of the troublesome outer regions of their empire. This religion, known as ‘Christianity’ after its founder, grew out of Judaism and eventually managed to establish itself in the very heart of Rome itself. The challenge in doing this was that to establish God as an omnipotent and om-nipresent single and supreme deity the church needed to marginalise the power and influence of the supernatural hoards, at least in the minds of their various and varied congregations.

This is the case with all monotheistic religions (the main ones being Judaism, Christianity and Islam, in order of their establishment, all of whom, supposedly worship the same God). Monotheism condemns magic because the main purpose of real magic is to conjure and control


the supernatural, which is mankind’s attempt to seize the power of God. Essentially monotheistic God does not want rivals - or, more importantly, does not want to allow Satan and his Fallen Angels greater access to the hearts and minds of human beings, because, once lost to Sa-tan, each one of the malleable humans can become a ‘carrier’ that can infect and sway their larger community.

To this end the Bible specifically outlaws any sort of involvement with either magic, the supernatur-al or spiritualism.

Deuteronomy, chapter 18 versus 10 and 11 says, “There shall not be found among you anyone, that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through fire, that useth div-ination, becomes an observer of times (i.e. a fortune teller, which includes palm-readers, tarot card readers, and supposedly even innocent tea-leaf readers), or an

enchanter, or a witch, a charmer, a consulter with familiar spirits, a wizard or a necromancer.”

By the sixth century the Roman Church (or Catholicism as we have come to call it) had gained the upper hand in winning control of Christianity. But within the fledgeling apostolic church they realised that the only way they could wrestle power away from the old gods was to institute a ‘War on Witchcraft’ as a means of stamping out the presence of magic and spiritualism in the world. The ‘long game’ was to make the actual presence of the supernatural rarer in the lives of the common people, so that, over time, their level of awareness and hence their ‘power of belief,’ and therefore manifestation would wane.


In Africa witches and witchcraft are still very much alive and well, as seen in this front page newspaper report in 2015.

© The Daily Sun.

Another, hidden agenda of targeting the practi-tioners of magic and witchcraft was to forcibly take possession of their powerful knowledge, spells and incarnations. The Vatican library and especially its secret chambers was – and still is – the richest collection of the Occults forbidden and magical books. During the Inquisition it was rumoured that for every heretic or magical book that was burned (together with the author and owner of course), a copy was sent to the Vati-can for cataloging – and study. Hardly surprising that both Pope Honorius and Pope Leon are believed to have been initiates and practitioners of the Dark Arts seeing that they had all the tools and instruction manuals at their disposal.

This attack on the World of Witchcraft worked.

It established the Catholic church as one of the richest and most powerful institutions the world has ever seen. It also dramatically changed the

supernatural and spiritual balance of power – And not necessarily for the better.

As in all societies, there are the good, the bad and the largely indifferent, and the supernatural world of demigods, goblins, demons, sirens, sprites and fairies appears to have been no differ-ent, at least back in those ‘early days’.

The ‘Good’ included the white-witches, the herbalist Druids, the gentle Gaeaians who nurtured Mother Earth and the Elemental ‘forest folk’ in their various guises. Sadly the Christian on-slaught labelled them all as ‘Witches and Devils’ and wiped out almost all of them, many in the most unnecessarily horrific ways.

While public attention was focused on hunting down the harmless, the truly evil demons and devils gained sway. But instead of rising up against the Christians, they joined them to revel in the bloodbath. What they did was simply possess the Christian leadership, and then gleefully drove them into an orgy of torture and depravation.


It started with the slaughter of innocents during the Cru-sades. Then came the Episcopal and Papal Inquisitions of the 12th and 13th centuries, where public mass hangings, disembowelment and slow roasting of men, women and children was perfected. The Huguenot Wars and the Reli-gious Wars of Sixteenth Century Europe followed, and that, like so much before it, was just wholesale slaughter.

At one point during the purges a distraught Captain wrote to the Pope to question why they should be killing every-one, including young children, when they had no idea of who they were or what denomination they followed. The Pope wrote back saying that they should definitely kill everyone so that God himself could decide whether they belonged in Heaven or Hell. If they did indeed deserve Hell, then the quicker the better. If they were innocent and de-served Heaven, then, likewise, the quicker the better.

Of course, the genocide continued unabated, and the Pure Evil, now comfortably housed in the Vatican grew ever stronger.

By the early nineteenth century the power of the Church as a killing machine began to wane and the military and politi-cal rulers became a more effective tool for the Forces of Darkness. This ushered in the age of mechanised warfare and the world was wrenched by the industrial-scale slaugh-ter of the First World War and the Second World War. Now we face the terrifying proliferation of not just nuclear and chemical weapons, but biological weapons as well, all readied for the final reaping.

Nevertheless religion has still provided Evil with plenty of opportunities. Islam started off as a warrior code, but we only realised the ‘shock and awe' of its fanaticism with the establishment of the Second Caliphate by ISIL in 2014. Within a year it was very clear, especially to the people living in Iraq and Syria, that the leadership of this ‘radical islamic’ faction had become tainted by Evil and the delight in extreme suffering and misery.


A Lilanga sculpture showing a con-temporary tokoloshe titled ‘Drink

and Dial’ © Art Auction East Africa.

Not only did they de-clare absolute war on all Jews and Chris-tians, but also on the competing Islamic de-nominations of the Shia, the Ithna Ashari, the Ismaili, the Zaydi and the Alawi. As a result, by 2017, their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had be-come the most obvi-ous, and highest pro-file incarnate of pure evil that we faced. Even though he was

killed in 2018 when US forces finally defeated the Caliphate, many of his followers have surrep-titiously returned, seeding themselves and their dark-ages ideology into our very own communi-ties.

Throughout history many supposedly religious leaders, from Pope Pius XII (the megalomaniac who, in the 1940’s, was known as ‘Hitler’s Pope’) to al-Baghdadi, have established horrific track records. Yet, it is important to note that, as with everyone possessed by evil, their actions and intentions have nothing to do with the validity and intentions of the religion or politics they choose as their guise. Those chosen guises have always been convenient camouflage to gain power and influence.

So, although Pure Evil has been acting out loud and large through influential religious and politi-cal leaders, public awareness and belief in the supernatural has been almost completely dis-tracted. We no longer see the everyday spirits who have been vanquished, while the most dan-gerous demons who are still right in front of us, are now cleverly disguised as humans so we no longer see them for what they truly are.

This lack of recognition is not surprising considering that (at least in the West) over the last one hundred years we have seen a rejection of organised religion and a growing disbelief in God. Along with this there has been a corresponding disbelief in the supernatural, who were viewed


as the legions of God and the Devil. They were all unceremoniously dumped with the likes of Bigfoot and almond-eyed aliens.

Outside of the First Nations reserves and the ex-African slave enclaves, the actual presence of the supernatural in the First World seemed to be almost completely a thing of the past… Then, just as the intellectual enlightenment and scientific logic of western civilisation seemed to be strangling out the last pockets of active belief, there appears to have been a slight reprieve for the starved supernatural.

The nineteenth century is considered to have been the start of a ‘magic revival’ in the West. This is due, at least in part, to the ‘curiosity factor’ especially of people who are craving a degree of individuality and power to influence (both of which the anonymity of the modern world, and more recently the Covid lockdowns, has deprived people of). This naturally tempts people to dabble in a bit of magic or spiritualism.

The fashionability of this spirituality and ‘techno-shamanism’ has continued to grow, giving rise to some extremely influential and powerful figures, starting with the Occultist Aleister Crowley who established the modern schools of magic.

As the Catholics understood during the ‘War on Witchcraft,’ magic is the ultimate control and manipulation of the paranormal and the forces of the supernatural. In the twenty-first century, this craft is now vested in shadowy organisations such as the Hermetic Order of Golden Dawn and the Ordo Templi Orients (OTO) which trace themselves back to Templar and Rosicrucian origins.

The link between the power of magic and the power of belief has always been clear, and Crow-ley’s power stemmed directly from his absolute commitment to Satan, as he said himself; “I was not content to just believe in Satan, I wanted to be his Chief of Staff.”

Yet modern Satanists have been very careful to remain in the shadows and most ordinary peo-ple are blind and oblivious to them and their grand agenda. The vast majority simply go about their daily lives consumed by worries about the pandemic, money, marriage, home schooling and of course their Facebook status. They don’t see – and don’t really want to see – the hungry spirits that swirl around them, feeding off their fears, their jealousy and their petty scheming.

Although spiritualism and belief in the supernatural has shrunk down to a few active pockets in the West, in Africa it has always been alive and well. Which is why it seems the Tokoloshe itself is also alive and well.


While African tribal society is still very much controlled and influenced by the witch-doctor (or Sangoma or Nganga as they are also called), since the time of the first Missionaries they have blended aspects of Christianity which has likewise provided a cloak of very useful camouflage. Consequently, sub-Saharan Africa is now generally seen to be Christian. But this is not neces-sarily the Western concept of Christianity. To appreciate just how strong the influence and belief in the supernatural is, it is worth noting that the largest Christian denomination in Central and Southern Africa, is Zionism.

The practices of the Church of Zion are defined as “a blending of traditional African beliefs with faith-healing and water baptism.” ‘Traditional African beliefs’ are then defined as “belief in spirits, veneration of the dead, use of magic, and traditional medicine. The role of humanity is generally seen as one of harmonizing nature with the supernatural.”

With more than one hundred million followers of traditional African beliefs across the continent it is clear that Africa is immersed in active spirituality, wholesale use and belief in magic and an intentional ‘harmonisation with the supernatural’.

In this African environment, crowded with witches, goblins and ghosts, the supernatural is con-sidered as much a legitimate ‘reality’ as the physical world is. This is reflected in how matter-of-factly the paranormal is reported in the mainstream media in Africa. Hardly a week goes by


Distinctive members of the Swaziland Zionist Church marching in the mid-1970’s. Picture by Ludo Kuipers, © World Pics.

without some regional or community website, radio station or newspaper reporting on some dis-tressing magical mischief perpetuated by the legions of other-worldly entities that stalk the Dark Continent.

The most wide-spread and infamous of these entities is a small hairy beast which seems to be part demon and part goblin, known as the Tokoloshe. Its existence in the minds of all the diverse tribes from northern Kenya to the southern tip of South Africa is beyond question. Consequently the Tokoloshe gets the lion’s share of media coverage.

Interestingly enough, because the Tokoloshe is accepted as a physical reality that often com-mits serious crimes such as rape, assault and sometimes even murder, the police are obliged to investigate cases of tokoloshe mischief. And sometimes it does not go quite as planned…

For example, in a well documented case in 1996, two policewomen were sent to the village of Bobonong in the north-eastern corner of Botswana to investigate allegations of a troublesome tokoloshe that had been terrorising and raping local women. A week later the policewomen fled back to their head quarters in Gaborone, traumatised as they had both been attacked and raped


themselves by the insatiable demon. This on-going story dominated the front-pages of the national newspapers for several days until the witch who owned the offending tokoloshe was identified and charged.

With the close links between African churches and the su-pernatural it is also not surpris-ing that, depending on what side the local pastor or priest is on, churches often become

targets. Over the years there have been numerous cases where the demon-possessed, the zombies and the tokoloshe themselves have burst into church services and attacked worship-pers.

To protect themselves from a tokoloshe attack people can buy ‘muti' and protection-spells from their local witch-doctor. This magical protection can become expensive, especially if your enemy who has commissioned the attack is richer than you. Consequently most people take more sim-ple precautions such as propping their beds up on bricks to make it too high for the short little beasties to jump up onto in the dead of night – when most attacks take place.

People can also buy Tokoloshe Salts or Tokoloshe Oil which many rural and peri-urban stores and supermarkets carry. These are a mix of charmed compounds and chemicals that block the path of the Tokoloshe so are ideal for lacing doorways and open windows. The prevalence of these type of prod-ucts are yet another clear reflection of how seriously people take the reality of this type of supernatural threat.

As the tokoloshe is used as a tool to do


the bidding of their owners (who are usually witches, wizards or sangomas), they are inherently valuable. As with anything of value, there is a healthy trade in tokoloshe and they are often ad-vertised in the local newspapers, websites or via posters and leaflets pinned onto community noticeboards. The price varies depending on how well trained and obedient the tokoloshe is and, of course, how powerful it is.

Again, the prevalence of this type of advertising - and presumably the actual transactions them-selves are further testament to the level of belief in the supernatural. This level of absolute belief is critical to the conjuring of the tokoloshe and its actual paranor-mal manifestation and, ultimately, its physical reality.

This adds a warning to the old say-ing, ‘the more you look, the more you see.’ Sometimes we are com-pletely unprepared for what we look for and end up seeing. But by then we are powerless to reverse the process and make the unbri-dled terror go away.

Another problem with seeing the


spirits that stand around us, as noted earlier is the likelihood of unwelcome attachment. The demons, demigods, spirits and tokoloshe of the supernatural are desperate to gain an anchor in the physical world. By showing any sort of interest people become a target for the entity at hand, and more often than not the entity at hand is not your dearly departed who you are yearn-ing for, even though they might disguise themselves as such.

The process is much like letting a vampire into your house. A vampire can not enter your house without being invited. This is exactly the same with the evil spirits, demons and ghouls of Sa-tan’s hoard and most people don’t realise that once they’re in, it is very hard to get them out.

Showing any curiosity that could become even the slightest belief in that entity from the other side scratching at your window pane, or trying to jump onto your bed, is a glaring invitation to the hungry, hunting entities which are all about us. It is important for any idle dabbler not to ac-knowledge them and certainly to never look them in the eye.

Keep the Faith my friends, and, as the Darkness gathers, tread very carefully. Since the dawn of time the Beasts have never been far behind us…


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Conjuring the Tokoshe - Alan Brough